Alone I'm Lonely
by prouvaires
Summary: On discovering that she’s pregnant, Sonny decides that the only available option is to run for it. So she does, and sixteen years later she’s still not sure she’s ready to face the consequences. Rated T for language.


**Title: **Alone I'm Lonely

**Summary:** On discovering that she's pregnant, Sonny decides that the only available option is to run for it. So she does, and sixteen years later she's still not sure she's ready to face the consequences.

My attempt to make an overdone plotline, and often poorly-done plotline, interesting again. I hope you guys enjoy.

**Rating: **T for language and mild sex references.

---

"_We were the cliché, but we carried on anyway."_

---

It was so cliché.

That's all Sonny could think as she stared down at the little white stick in her hand. So cliché. Famous TV star pregnant at sixteen. Boy were the paparazzi going to have a field day over this. She raised her face to look in mirror and examined every aspect of herself. The tear-filled brown eyes, trembling lips, flushed cheeks. Every inch the wrecked teenager.

She blinked at her reflection to clear away the tears, and put her head in her hands, leaning over the sink. She had absolutely no clue what to do. Why weren't there books on this? Why couldn't she just run to Wikianswers and type in 'What do I do if I get pregnant at sixteen with Chad Dylan Cooper's baby?'

Of course, that was the other major problem. _Chad Dylan Cooper. _The three-named jerkface who she might sorta kinda be in love with. But not so in love that she was ready to have his baby when she was just sixteen and he was only a year older.

She pulled her attention back to the pallid reflection in the mirror and scowled at it.

"Idiot," she muttered. Hearing it was sort of a weird relief, to have acknowledged out loud the fact that she was, in fact, an idiot. An idiot of the first degree. As she sighed and dropped the pregnancy test into the trash, she did some quick calculation, counting on her fingers as she moved out of the bathroom and into her and Tawni's dressing room.

She knew that there was only one time she could have gotten pregnant – the night of the New Years party at the studio, when she had had far too much to drink and so had Chad. The next morning she had woken up next to him on a sofa, both of them naked, and was now forced to come to the conclusion that she'd been debating internally for months. Yes, they had had sex. No, they hadn't used protection. Which made her three months pregnant.

She groaned absently as she slumped onto the divan, rubbing her face with a hand. There was no way she could tell Chad. He'd either freak out and run away, ignore her, shoot her, shoot himself or tell her to get an abortion. None of which were appealing options to her. Of course, an abortion would be the most obvious solution, but something inside of Sonny just point blank refused to have any sort of murder on her hands.

So, her choices appeared to have mapped themselves out so that she had only one option left.

Run.

Her mind made up, she started to hurry around the room, tottering slightly on the heels she had put on that morning because they looked so good with the new dress (which she had promptly thrown up all over). Just as she was stuffing her last item of clothing, Tawni strolled in, reapplying her lip gloss.

Tawni froze mid-gloss as she took in the scattered clothes, bulging suitcase, and frazzled-looking Sonny.

"Going somewhere?" she inquired after several moments of tense silence.

"…maybe," Sonny deflected, and then thrust a piece of paper at Tawni.

"Do me a favour and give this to my mom?"

Tawni, without hesitation, unfolded the paper.

"Hey, that's private!" Sonny protested, reaching for it, but Tawni held it out of reach, all the while reading it.

"Mom, I'm sorry … big word …" Tawni mumbled to herself for a while, and then gasped, turning wide eyes on Sonny, who groaned. "You're _pregnant_?!"

Sonny snatched the letter back. "So what if I am?"

"What are you going to do?" Tawni asked, looking more pleased at Sonny's misfortune than perhaps she should.

"Isn't it obvious?" Sonny retorted, gesturing around her at the messy room.

"You're running away." It wasn't a question, so Sonny just nodded.

"Imagine if the paparazzi find out," she said, and Tawni, looking serious for once, nodded.

"So where are you going to go?"

"I don't know. Back to Wisconsin, maybe?"

Tawni rolled her eyes. "Poor, poor, naïve little Sonny. If you stay in America they'll just find you. You have to get way out. Maybe Europe or something. Outer Mongolia. I dunno."

Sonny scowled at her. "Right then, Miss Running Away Expert, where should I go?"

Tawni beamed and held up a finger. "Wait right here," she ordered, and then scurried off. Sonny sighed and sat on her suitcase.

It took Tawni several minutes to return, and she entered proudly, carrying a globe.

"Tawni, what – "

"Fate's gonna decide," Tawni announced cheerily, placing the globe on the table and spinning it. "Wherever my finger ends up is where you're going."

For once, Sonny was glad of Tawni's egoism as the blonde hummed to herself, watching the colours on the globe blur into one as she spun it. Tawni wasn't going to ask the questions that Sonny didn't want to think about – like how Chad and her family would react to her disappearance, what So Random would be like without her, what she was going to do when she reached whatever destination Tawni picked out for her.

"And it stops on …" Tawni was saying as Sonny snapped back into concentration, "… oh, wait. Let's spin again."

Sonny almost laughed at the irony. Tawni's orange painted fingernail had come to a rest on L.A., which is where all her problems had begun. The globe whirled again, and Sonny watched as it slowed. When it finally stopped, Tawni leant in closer to read the name.

"Alazzio, Italy!" she announced brightly, and pulled Sonny into a tight hug.

"But I don't speak Italian," Sonny pointed out, and Tawni released her to shrug.

"So? Learn it on the plane. C'mon, I'll get you a taxi."

Sonny couldn't tell, but she thought from the way Tawni was acting so deliberately nonchalant that she was actually going to miss her. As they stood outside the studio, Sonny determined not to think about the future, Tawni suddenly pulled her friend into a bone-crushing hug.

"Call me if you need anything," the blonde demanded, for once not groaning at the sappiness of the moment. Sonny hugged her back, letting a couple of tears leak out.

"I'll miss you," she whispered, sobs threatening to choke her.

"But you'll be back soon, right?" Tawni asked, and Sonny shrugged.

"I guess. Maybe I'll give the baby up for adoption when it's born and come back."

Tawni nodded with satisfaction, and then thrust something at Sonny as the taxi drew up.

"Tawni, what …?" Sonny began, opening the bag. Inside were a huge number of hundred dollar bills. "I can't take – " she protested, but Tawni shushed her immediately.

"They're yours anyway. They're a bonus from Mr Condor for looking after his daughter for him. Marshall gave it to me to give to you ages ago, but I forgot."

Sonny beamed and squished her friend into a hug again as the taxi honked impatiently.

"Thank you," she breathed, and then she climbed into the yellow cab and slammed the door behind her with a morbid kind of finality.

"I'll miss you," Tawni whispered to the car, and then turned back to re-enter the studios, stopping only to post the letter to Sonny's mom.

Maybe she should have called Marshall or Chad, to tell them what was happening – but it didn't seem real somehow. She was certain that either she was dreaming or that Sonny would be back in half an hour, yelling "gotcha" and smiling her irritatingly perky grin.

She supposed at least Sonny would be free from scrutiny, the baby allowed to grow up in peace, Chad kept away from any form of responsibility.

So, for her friend's sake, she never told anyone the real reason Sonny had run away. She knew Sonny's mom knew, but Connie had packed up and moved back to Wisconsin almost immediately after her daughter's mysterious disappearance and refused to have anything to do with Condor Studios or any of the people that worked there.

---

Years passed. Sixteen years, six months and twenty-one days, to be precise.

Twenty one days after her daughter turned sixteen, Sonny had finally bowed to pressure and agreed to take her daughter to L.A. In a foolish fit when the girl was about eight, Sonny had mentioned that she used to live in L.A., and since then there hadn't been a day when her daughter didn't beg, plead or demand to go. Sonny thought, sixteen years on, that maybe she was ready to face the memories.

She only knew vaguely how everyone was doing, from reports from Tawni, who was the only person she'd kept in touch with. She sent her mother a Christmas card every year, and had written to inform her that she had a granddaughter, but her mother had rung her while she was on the plane and been so unsupportive that Sonny had refused to give her an address.

"Carlina, sit still!" she ordered her daughter for the eighth time in an hour, and the sixteen-year-old scowled at her mother as she fidgeted in her seat.

"I hate aeroplanes," Carlina muttered in Italian.

"You're the one who wanted to go to America," Sonny retorted in English. Carlina, with one final grumble, settled herself down and picked up a book. Sonny almost laughed to herself – the child was so like Chad. She was arrogant and brash and vain one moment, but then the sweetest, most caring daughter any mother could wish for the next. Her mood-swings tended to give Sonny whiplash. While Carlina's arrogant side tended to dominate, she had a quick wit, just like both her parents, and usually managed to make Sonny laugh when she was trying to be angry.

"It's only a couple more hours," Sonny reassured her daughter, patting her knee. Carlina's brown eyes flashed up from the page and she pushed her long blonde hair out of her face.

"I know. But, God, I'm so bored. Couldn't we travel first class?"

Sonny laughed. "Honey, we could barely afford the flight in economy."

"Why can't we just tap my dad? He must be rich, if he lives in Los Angeles. Oh, gosh, am I going to meet him?"

Carlina was suddenly fidgety again, and Sonny groaned internally.

"No. I told you."

"You won't even tell me who he is," Carlina grumbled, crossing her arms and frowning.

"Believe me, you'd understand if you knew him," Sonny muttered, burying her head back in her magazine.

From what Sonny had seen, Chad had gone from strength to strength after she'd left, further supporting her conviction that she'd done the right thing. He'd gotten roles in films, first as an extra, then the leads. He was every young girl's pin-up, every guy's hero, every woman's secret crush. His icy blue eyes glared out from every billboard and his used tissues sold for a hundred dollars each on eBay.

What Sonny didn't know, and what Tawni hadn't told her, was that Chad was nothing like the ice-cold megastar he pretended to be. Since Sonny left, he had never had a serious girlfriend. He'd been clinically depressed for six months, even trying to commit suicide. He'd frantically published ads asking for her to come back, stuck "have you seen this girl?" posters on every lamppost in L.A., and he refused to work in any movie that had a lead actress that looked anything like Sonny.

In short, she had destroyed him by leaving. But Sonny never found this out, because back-of-beyond towns in northern Italy never tended to care about arrogant American film stars.

As Sonny and Carlina wandered out of the airport, dragging their suitcases behind them – Carlina's several sizes bigger than Sonny's – they were met by a snooty-looking chauffeur in over-the-top uniform.

"You are Miss Sonny Munroe and Miss Carlina Munroe?"

"That's us," Sonny replied, and he sniffed.

"Very well. Please follow me, I will be driving you to Mrs Lancaster's house."

"We're visiting Zora?" Carlina inquired in a low voice as they followed the man out into the carpark.

"No, silly," Sonny replied, lugging her suitcase down a couple of steps. "I told you Tawni married Zora's older brother."

"Right," Carlina said immediately. "And Tawni and Zora fell out over it for two years."

Sonny had told her daughter everything about working on So Random – everything except her weird, love/hate relationship with the one and only Chad Dylan Cooper. So, when the obnoxious Mercedes eventually drew up outside a huge Beverly Hills mansion, Carlina immediately recognised the woman on the porch.

"Aunt Tawni!" she squealed, rocketing from the car and almost tackling her godmother. Sonny laughed as she helped the chauffeur with the bags. Tawni and Carlina had only ever spoken over the phone, but appeared to get along famously. As Sonny followed them both inside, she could hear Carlina chattering away nineteen-to-the-dozen, with Tawni nattering back just as fast.

"So, Sonny," Tawni said eventually, turning her attention onto her friend. With a laugh, Sonny embraced her, squishing her tightly into a bear hug.

"You look great," she said, and Tawni flicked her hair.

"Now we're done stating the obvious, so do you."

"Thanks," Sonny said, beaming, and as she began to catch Tawni up on events since their last phone conversation there was a loud splash from outside and Sonny and Tawni rushed outside to see Carlina in the pool, her electric blue dress billowing around her as she swam to the steps.

"The fucking dog pushed me in," she complained, berating the animal in Italian at the same time as she picked up a towel off the lounger and wrapped it around herself.

"Carlina Alessandra Munroe, you watch your language," Sonny reprimanded her.

"I only bought this dress yesterday! Now it's totally bloody ruined!"

Tawni caught the Alsatian by its collar. "I'm so sorry, Carlina. Pace is a little wild."

"You're telling me," Carlina muttered, wringing her long hair out and glaring at her mother.

"Be polite," Sonny ordered, turning to Tawni. "It's okay, it was just an accident."

"What about my fucking dress?!" Carlina howled in outrage behind her.

"I've already told you to watch your mouth," Sonny yelled, rounding on her daughter, who squared up to her mother.

"Wow, Tawni, hosting bitch-fights again?" a horribly familiar, sardonic voice drawled, accompanied by another man's chuckle. Sonny turned slowly, knowing who she was about to come face to face to and dreading it. Agonisingly sluggishly, she dragged her eyes up to meet his, and his snapped to hers.

"Oh my God," he murmured in disbelief, drinking the sight of her in. He was about to take a step towards her when Carlina suddenly stopped sulking long enough to take in who was standing in front of her.

"Oh my _God,_" she exclaimed, rushing forward, the towel dropping forgotten to the floor behind her. "You're … you're … you're _Chad Dylan Cooper_!" she squealed, staring up at him as though entranced.

"Well noticed," Chad remarked snidely, all his attention still on Sonny, who was blushing deeply.

"Tawni, can we …" he trailed off uncertainly, and Tawni took the hint, shepherding her husband and goddaughter inside, the latter craning her head back over her shoulder for one last glimpse of the world's most famous movie star. Sonny was left by the pool with Chad, completely alone. They stared at each other unsurely for several more moments, and then Chad crossed the space between them in a few quick, hurried paces and crashed his mouth onto hers, his hands crushing her against him. She raised her hands to his hair, returning the kiss, and felt the tears on his cheeks.

"Why?" he whispered, his face buried in her hair.

"I had to," she murmured back, her tears wetting his collar. "I can't explain. I just had to."

"That's bullshit!" he exclaimed, suddenly taking several steps back. "You _had _to disappear off the face of the earth? You had to let me think you were dead or something? You had to let me live the last sixteen years of my life wondering what I did, what I didn't do, to make you run away without ever telling me?"

There were angry, heartbroken tears running down his cheeks, and he wiped an arm across his face impatiently.

"You think it wasn't hard for me?" Sonny demanded, angry in that way that only Chad could make her. "I had to make a living, keep myself hidden, raise our daughter in secret all alone – "

Chad's eyes flashed open, his expression dumbfounded.

"Our _what_?"

Sonny stared down at the ground, shuffling her feet, all her rage replaced by shame. "Carlina. She's the reason I had to leave. I was pregnant, Chad. Because of that night at New Years."

Chad sank down onto a lounger, looking as though he was going into shock.

"I have a daughter?" he murmured incredulously. "Where is she?"

"You met her. She was the squeeing blonde one."

"Does she know I'm her dad?"

"Do you think she would have covered her room in posters of you if she'd known?"

Chad frowned for a few moments more, and then turned a betrayed expression on Sonny. "You should have told me. You should have let me be a part of her life."

"Shut the fuck up," Sonny burst out, astonishing Chad. Sonny _never _swore. "You would have refused to have anything to do with me or her! You would have been terrified."

"She's my _daughter,_" Chad pointed out, just as validly. "You should have at least given me the option. Sonny, I thought you hated me," he confessed, and her heart went out to him. She dropped to her knees next to the lounger, cupping his cheek.

"I was scared," she admitted as he shut his eyes, enjoying the gentle caress. "I was sixteen. I didn't know what to do."

"Where did you go?" he asked quietly, reaching out to take her hand in his.

"Italy. This little place called Alazzio. Carlina's fluent in Italian," she added proudly, and Chad groaned.

"A bi-lingual daughter that I've known nothing about. God, this is all too much."

"I'm sorry," Sonny apologised, and Chad chuckled.

"Any boyfriends I need to beat up?" he inquired, and Sonny laughed.

"Not that I know of."

"Good, that's one less thing to worry about. When are you going to tell her?"

"Well, I was thinking – "

They were interrupted suddenly by none other than the girl they were talking about, who came running out of the house holding a fourteen-month-old boy in her arms, who was giggling like crazy as she spun him around.

"Mom, look!" she called, her hair whipping out as she twisted in circles. "Leo can say my name!" She stumbled to a breathless halt in front of them both, bouncing the little boy on her hip.

"Say Carlina, Leo. Say Carlina," she coaxed, tickling the child under his chin.

"Kah-eema," the little boy declared proudly, and Carlina beamed.

"See? Isn't he good? Auntie Tawni's going to be so proud of you." She addressed this last to Leo, who recognised his mother's name and clapped his hands. Chad just watched in astonishment as Carlina set the boy down and watched him with an eagle eye as he plopped down onto his bottom on the poolside and began playing with the toy horse he'd obviously dropped there earlier. Pace the Alsatian padded out and curled up between the child and the water, obviously knowing what would happen if the child was left to his own devices so perilously close to the pool.

"So, what are you talking about?" Carlina inquired, flipping her hair so the curly ends shifted against her still-damp blue dress.

"You," Chad told her after a short pause, and she looked like she couldn't decide whether to be pleased or worried. She compromised by shooting a glare at her mother and then smiling anxiously.

"What about me?"

"Well, the thing is," Sonny began, nervously fiddling with her fringe, "we need to tell you something."

"What?" Carlina prodded, apparently taking in her stride the fact that her mother and the famous Chad Dylan Cooper knew each other. In her mind, probably everyone in L.A. knew each other.

"Well, um …" Sonny trailed off, glancing beseechingly at Chad.

"Carlina," Chad said suddenly, leaning towards the girl. "I'm your father."

It took a couple of seconds to sink in. Chad and Sonny watched with bated breath as different emotions flickered across their daughter's face. Shock. Delight. Fear. Shyness. Anger.

The only one that lingered was the last one.

"And you weren't going to tell me that my dad is Chad Dylan _fucking _Cooper?!" she roared at her mother, startling Leo, who started to cry. "Why the fuck didn't you tell me?" she demanded.

"I wasn't sure that he wanted you," Sonny explained. "I thought it would be better for you having no father than having one who didn't want you."

"And now he wants me?" Carlina raged savagely. "Now I'm all grown-up and past the difficult stages?"

"If this is an easy stage I dread to think what you've been through," Chad muttered to Sonny. Carlina, upon hearing this, screamed in outrage.

"I hate you _so much,_" she shrieked, and whirled and stormed back inside.

"Well … she didn't try to hit you," Sonny ventured after several moments silence, and Chad laughed softly as Tawni ran out of the house to comfort her crying son.

---

Three days later, in the middle of the night, Carlina had done the most rebellious thing she had ever done, and headed off to the airport by herself. She was sitting on the back of a bench in the terminal, ticket in hand, handbag slung over her shoulder, picking at her lip nervously as she waited for her flight to be called.

"Going somewhere?" a low voice asked from behind her, and she squealed and whirled around, almost falling off the bench. She saw the blue eyes and the blonde hair that matched hers shade for shade, and glared.

"None of your fucking business," she retorted, and turned back to face in the opposite direction.

"Actually, it's all of my fucking business," Chad informed her, moving around to sit next to her.

"Um, no, it's not. You're only my father biologically, not in any other way. So you can't tell me what to do."

Chad sighed, and rubbed his face in his hands. "Look, Carlina, I didn't get a choice in this either. I promise you that if I'd known about you, nothing would have kept me from coming to find you."

His eyes were honest as they gazed into hers, and she buried her face in her knees, her arms curled around her shins.

"I can't deal with this," she gasped, and Chad could hear the sobs in her voice. Tentatively, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"How about we take this one step at a time?" he asked softly, feeling slightly awkward. When he had considered children in his future he had imagined babies, little boys like Leo, not teenage girls who had their own opinions, problems, lives.

She nodded and shifted so that her face was against his chest, and he rocked her gently.

"How about we go and get in the car and I'll take you to my house?" he suggested. She nodded again, and he led her out of the airport, ripping up the ticket he'd prised from her hand as he went. He opened the passenger door for her, letting her slide in, and then went round to the driver's side.

"Nice car," she commented shyly as he revved the engine, and he grinned.

"It's one of the only things I throw money away on," he admitted as he backed out of the parking lot.

"What're the other things?" she inquired quietly, running her hand along the dashboard.

"Leather jackets and, as of today, my somewhat unexpected teenage daughter," he announced with a huge grin. "Reach into the backseat and open that cage."

She did so, her fingers feeling for the latch on the metal door, and reached her hand inside. She encountered a ball of fluff, which she very carefully drew out of the cage and brought onto her lap.

"Happy sixteenth birthday," he told her with a grin.

"Oh my God," she breathed as she wrapped her hands around the little, grey-furred kitten, which mewled and purred contendedly as she lifted it up to examine.

"He's beautiful!" she exclaimed, cradling it against her body as she reached over to give Chad an awkward, one-armed hug. "Thank you so much!"

"She. Your mom said you've wanted a cat for ages," Chad said, once she released him, and Carlina beamed at the kitten, who sneezed.

"She. I'm gonna call her … um … something like … oh, I know – I'll call her Cliché."

"Cliché? Seriously?" Chad inquired disbelievingly, and Carlina laughed.

"Yeah, because this is all one huge cliché. My mom getting pregnant with me, running away, and then coming back to you sixteen years later? Hello, biggest cliché _ever_."

Chad couldn't argue with this logic, and instead just pushed the accelerator down further.

"This is going to be so weird," Carlina remarked, stroking the newly-named Cliché as the kitten purred in her lap.

"Tell me about it," Chad replied, and they smiled awkwardly at each other before Chad pulled up at his house. Sonny was waiting outside for them, and she immediately dragged Carlina into a hug, almost squishing Cliché, who yowled in protest. Chad got out of the car too and joined the hug.

"Never do that to me again," Sonny ordered as they all embraced each other, and Carlina laughed.

"Okay, mom." She added something in Italian that Chad didn't understand, and then mother and daughter turned identical pairs of chocolate-brown eyes on him.

"I think I can learn to live here, with you," Carlina translated, and Sonny nodded.

"I'm not leaving you again, Chad," she promised, and he smiled softly and kissed her cheek.

"Happy ever after and all that shit," Carlina added, and Chad laughed.

"I'm looking forward to the shit," he informed them, and Carlina beamed, detaching herself from the hug and heading up to the front door.

"Good, because I can guarantee that there'll be plenty of it!"

---

**Disclaimer: I don't own Sonny With A Chance, or anything else you recognise. **

**I hope you guys liked it. If you did, I'd love you to say so in a review! **

**Please don't favourite without reviewing.**


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